KARACHI, September 12: The phone at the Alam Welfare Trust, an NGO running from a single-room office in Karachi's busy Gulshan-e-Iqbal locality, does not stop ringing. Two men take turns to answer and counsel the callers. This is the only suicide hotline that operates in the city of 14 million, and that too in an informal arrangement. Advertisement is by word of mouth or through a few stray signs painted on the city's walls.Muhammad Aslam, one of the men, says the trust was set up by a local resident when one day he read in the papers that a labourer had committed suicide after poisoning to death his three children.His suicide note said it had become increasingly difficult to cope with rising prices at a time when jobs were scarce and there was no social support to fall back on. That was 1998. Things are worse now.Newspaper reports and surveys conducted by private organisations suggest that Pakistan's suicide rate has jumped dramatically in the past years. From over 100 deaths reported in 1999 to 600 in Sindh province so far this year. ``If this is not good enough to wake up the government, what is?'' asks Omar Qureshi, a Karachi journalist.The agegroup that commits suicide the most here is between 20 and 30. The main reason is economic hardship. Most of them are men, who have given up hope of improving their living standards or have been crushed by the demands of their families.``Growing unemployment is one of the main reasons,'' says Nazia Haroon, a social scientist at Karachi University. And people who are employed are unable to make the ends meet.The growing incidence of poverty has belied claims by leaders that no Pakistani sleeps with an empty stomach. Many of these poor people migrate to the cities where they eke a living by begging or stealng. It is a common sight to see young girls and boys looking for food in garbage dumps. Conservative Pathan families have started to send their daughters on the roads to sell various items at traffic lights _ unheard of till recently.The second largest age-group is in its 60s _ retired men and women who cannot afford to maintain their lifestyles, no matter how spartan, due to inflation. Living expenses have climbed by an average of 50 per cent in the past year while fuel costs have climbed by 45 per cent. The government has its parameters to deny these figures. It maintains that inflation is at 4.6 per cent a year.Prodded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donor agencies, the government intends to sack more than 100,000 government employees in the next two years as part of its public sector downsizing programme.Its privatisation programme aims to sell off more than 100 state-owned units in the next few years, which means thousands of households without any means of income.While the IMF and the World Bank have asked the government to redouble their efforts at reducing poverty, the end results have been far from satisfactory. A Social Action Program launched by previous governments has been riddled by corruption and politics. The military government is not expected to fare any better.Jobs in the private sector are scarce. Many multinationals have closed shop and local business houses are not doing good either. The economy is in recession and frequent violence coupled by changes in government and the country's over-dependence on donor agencies for economic survival have not helped.Statistics complied by the Karachi University's Social Welfare Department indicate that suicides due to mental instability are a low. Other reasons include lovers killing themselves when their families did not agree to their marriage.In Pakistan, giving up life is one of the gravest taboos. Religion does not allow suicide victims a funeral. Death by drinking poison or hanging from the ceiling fan are still the most preferred methods, but there is now a growing trend of self-immolation _ aimed at drawing notice and almost unheard of in the 80s.In recent months, people who have burnt themselves include a man whose daughter had been raped and the police were allegedly not registering a case, and another who could not get a job to support his family.
